Posts from September 2012 (Page 2)

     This week we continue our worship series on Hospitality  by reflecting more deeply on what it means to be a stranger and to welcome strangers.  Susan Goodman, our summer intern will be back for a short visit and will witness to her own experience of hospitality.      Christine Pohl writes, “Sometimes we describe our nation as a society of relative strangers – millions of people minimally attached to our home and community, highly mobile, independently pursuing our…

 

John Chrysostom, a church leader from the fourth and early fifth centuries insisted that hospitality should be: 1.  Face to Face 2.  Gracious 3.  Unassuming 4.  Nearly indiscriminate 5.  Alway enthusiastic How does his description fit with your understanding of hospitality?  How might you consider putting  just one of these characteristics into play this week? (from Making Room,  by Christine D. Pohl, p. 6)

“In ancient times, hospitality was viewed as a pillar on which the moral structure of the world rested.  It included welcoming strangers into the home and offering them food, shelter, and protection.  Providing hospitality also involved recognizing the stranger’s worth and common humanity.” (from the Making Room study guide by Christine Pohl & Pamela Buck p. 13) What are your fears and uncertainties about welcoming strangers?

Face to face we sit- The silence, like a stone wall, separating us. It is not enough to sit in proximity if we have no trust. Give us hearts of flesh to grieve our hostility:  then grant us laughter and let us reach.  Even if we do not see eye to eye clearly. dare us open up our hands be hospitable:  bare us soul to soul.      ~ by Kate Compston

We begin a new worship series this Sunday focused on Hospitality.  This worship series will invite our community to recover hospitality as a central practice in our efforts to grow in faith and reach in love.   Take some time to identify people in your life who warmly welcome strangers and others in need. What do they do? How are they viewed by other people? Henri Nouwen writes, “If there is any concept worth restoring to its original depth and evocative…

The things, good Lord, that I pray for, give me your grace to labor for. 16th-century English martyr, –Thomas More,